This month’s theme is Easy Sales Funnels and last week we went over the 3 pages every funnel must have (click on the link below this week’s video if you need to catch up).

An easy sales funnel follows a familiar path – free something, low-cost something, high-priced something, and then top tier something. If you have a solid funnel in place, you will have people entering the funnel, you will have a process to educate or nurture your prospects, they will be hearing from you regularly, and some will buy from you. But if your numbers or sales aren’t looking great, chances are you have a leak somewhere. Your funnel has a hole (or two or three) where subscribers, leads, or prospects are falling through.

In this video, we go over four common causes for funnel leaks, and once you spot them, they’re pretty easy to fix.

Let’s talk about Why Your Funnels Leak—And What To Do About It.

Last week we went over a simple sales funnel, so if you haven’t seen that video, click on the link below and you can jump over there to refresh. But briefly, a Simple Sales Funnel follows a familiar path – free something, low-cost something, high-priced something, and then top tier something.

If you have a solid funnel in place, you will have people entering the funnel, you will have a process to educate or nurture your prospects, they will be hearing from you regularly, and some will buy from you. But if your numbers or sales aren’t looking great, chances are you have a leak somewhere. Your funnel has a hole (or two or three) where subscribers, leads, or prospects are falling through. There are four common causes for funnel leaks, and once you spot them, they’re pretty easy to fix.

#1 Not enough traffic

The very heart of your sales funnel is the traffic you bring in. Without visitors to your blog or opt-in pages, you’ll have no subscribers. Without subscribers, you’ll have no (or very few) sales. Without sales, you’ll have no business. Yet this is where a lot of people struggle. How can you get more eyes on your content and more subscribers into your funnel?

How to fix it: Traffic generation is an entire industry of its own, but here are some tips: Use good SEO to encourage search engines to rank your content well. Be present and active in the places where your ideal reader hangs out, whether that’s on social media, in niche forums, or at live events. Use paid ads to drive targeted traffic to highly relevant pages. Recruit JV partners and affiliates to promote your offers. Buy solo ads in related email newsletters.

#2 No follow-up

This is a leaky funnel mistake that a lot of new entrepreneurs make. They spend a lot of time and energy setting up a great squeeze page or landing page and driving traffic to it, then they deliver the goods to their subscribers, and then…nothing. No follow-up emails. No offers to buy more. No related services or products. Nothing.

How to fix it: Before you spend time building that opt-in page or offer, be sure you have a back-end to promote. And this is where having a really good autoresponder or marketing system such as Infusionsoft comes in handy. Using tags, you can send emails to someone if they purchased a specific item, all customers, or other segmentation. Be sure to have items that you can cross-sell or upsell, provide discounts, coupons, one time offers – so many things that you can do to keep a new subscriber or buyer engaged.

#3 No call-to-action

This happens most typically at the top of the funnel. Your blog posts, social media content, podcasts, YouTube videos—everything you offer for free—must have some kind of call-to-action, or it’s all just wasted energy. Your call-to-action can be as simple as “Subscribe to my YouTube channel” or “Follow me on Facebook for more tips,” but it must be there.

How to fix it: Every time you write a blog post or an email, as yourself, “What do I want my readers to do when they’re done reading/listening/watching this?” That becomes your call to action.

#4 No product offers

When you’re just starting out, this can be a problem. You know you need to be building a mailing list, but with nothing to offer them, what’s the point? The truth is, there are lots of ways to make money in your funnel even if you don’t have a product to sell.

How to fix it: Promote affiliate offers. No matter what industry you’re in, there are a variety of tools and products your readers need. Find those tools, sign up for the affiliate programs, and recommend them to your readers. Not only will your readers thank you for pointing them in the right direction, but you’ll earn a little cash, too.

Always put yourself in the mind of your potential or current client and ask yourself:

• “What else is she looking for?”
• “What can I give her for free that will add phenomenal value to her experience with me, keep her loyal and make her turn to me for solutions first?”
• “What paid product can I offer that will bridge the gap?”
• “What extras can I offer that she will be happy to pay for? To download for free?”
• “How can I help her fast-track, if she wants to do so?”

We will be talking about sales funnels this whole month, coming up next week we will talk about how to put your sales funnel on autopilot.

Catch up on other Easy Sales Funnels episodes:

• [Video] 3 Pages Every Funnel Must Have
• [Video] Put Your Sales on Autopilot With a Follow-Up Sequence
• [Video] Top Tools to Build Your Sales Funnel

Did you enjoy this episode and want to put it into action? Grab this planner!